The Olympics officially began a week ago. What have you watched and how have you watched? Are you happy with what you saw and the time spent watching?
When the Olympics are on, it can be overwhelming to decide what to watch. Growing up, there was probably only a highlights show in the evening. We didn't have multiple channels showing different events or every single event livestreamed, or hundreds of short video clips on social media or websites. We watched what they showed us.
In my past "follow year-round" days, I used to follow Olympic sports and athletes every year, not only every four years. I watched World Cups, read athlete blogs, and followed Olympic qualifying. I researched (and shared on my blog) when competitions were happening and how we could watch or attend in person. When the Olympic Games happened, I spent hours every day watching, wanting to watch as much as I could. Having followed their journeys, I was interested in each Canadian's competition, whether that meant a medal or a personal best of 20th place.
The last few years, I haven't followed Olympic sports as much as I used to. My time was devoted to my other passions, my projects, and my book. So how do I decide what to watch when I am not watching as much as I'd like? In thinking about it, I have wondered how other people choose? What criteria can help us choose what to focus on?
Depending on how much time someone wants to spend watching the Olympics, I thought I'd share some ways to help us decide.
First and foremost, for me, is to choose sports I love to watch and/or participate in. This seems like an obvious statement, but even this can be overwhelming when we love a lot of sports.
The type of sports we love can help us decide. Do we love to watch elegance, speed, combat, endurance, or mastery of a skill? Do we love to watch an athlete compete to exhaustion like long races or go as fast as they can in a sprint? Do we love the elegance of figure skating or combat between athletes like hockey? Do we love timed races like a downhill race or racing against others like short-track speed skating? Those of us who said yes to each one of these choices are those who have the biggest challenge deciding what to watch.
Some sports take days whereas others take minutes. Curling for example starts with a round robin tournament where each team plays every other team. A curling match can last from 90 minutes (mixed doubles) to hours (men and women). These athletes, in a way, are lucky that their Olympic experience will compete for 16-24 hours. Mistakes aren't all do or die. It's also very demanding, though — physically and mentally. To watch a sport like curling (or hockey), it's easier to either only watch the playoffs/medal rounds or choose one team to follow.
If you love curling, hockey, or figure skating, you can easily spend hours and days watching those sports and not have time for anything else.
On the other hand, a sport like downhill skiing, each athlete gets one run. As a fan, you can spend one to two hours and watch every athlete compete for one to two minutes each. One mistake can mean your Olympic dream is over or one magic run can mean your Olympic dream is realized.
Some sports have more entries than others. For example, curling has ten teams, hockey has twelve, while alpine and cross-country skiing can have 50-80 racers. In alpine, each one competes on their own for a minute or two (or side by side), while in cross-country, the skiers all compete at the same time (sometimes with interval departures).
This brings me to another criteria. Do we love to follow the best in the world who are almost guaranteed to win? Some sports are more predictable than others. Some athletes are more dominant than others. Sliding sports tend to have less surprise results — the top few sleds will normally be fastest throughout the season. Ice dancing has less risk than pairs figure skating. Falls are rare in ice dancing and more common in pairs or singles. There have traditionally been less surprises in ice dancing with the best in the world winning gold.
Sometimes, predictability is wonderful. We want to see the best athletes (or our favourite athletes) perform at their best and win, rather than them make a mistake and lose. How many multiple world champions have never won an Olympic medal? They win the world championships year after year, and then stumble at the Olympics. It's heartbreaking. How many athletes have never won a competition and then win at the Olympics? It's a once in a lifetime achievement that can change their lives. These events sometimes make the best stories.
This goes back to the old Wild World Of Sports introduction from the 1970s:
"the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat."
This is what makes sports exciting for some or too nerve-wracking for others. I prefer to watch sports when I don't know the results. I want to feel the excitement of the competition. Others prefer to watch the highlight shows once they know the results and see their country's best performances.
Knowing the schedule and when our favourites or the best are competing can save us time. For example, rather than watching every figure skater, we watch the last flight when the seeded athletes will compete. In other sports, the seeded athletes go first (cross-country skiing, for example). We have the excitement of the competition with the unpredictability of sport while managing our viewing time.
Some people want to see sports icons regardless of their nationality—those athletes who have won Olympics medals and will probably win again. Sometimes, they're the flagbearers, other times, they are household names. Sometimes, their success continues, while other times, they stumble or are overshadowed by the next generation.
Some sports have multiple events so an athlete can win multiple medals like alpine skiing or speed skating; while other sports, it's a single event like hockey or bobsleigh. Team events have added a second medal possibility for some sports like figure skating, luge, and mixed doubles curling.
Another criteria for choosing athletes to follow are stories of perseverence, overcoming obstacles, or comebacks that make us take notice — they retired, had injuries, or had children before coming back to compete again.
Having favourite athletes helps us decide what to watch. During some Olympic cycles, I have favourite athletes in sports I hadn't previously prioritized. Once those athletes retired, I didn't necessarily watch the sport until another favourite came along. For example I followed cross-country skiing and biathlon a lot more in the early 2010s when Alex Harvey and Jean-Phillippe Le Guellec competed and occasionally were on World Cup podiums.
Once we know what we want to watch, we need to know when those events are on. I mentioned in my last blog post when I revived my Olympic blog, that I didn't feel I needed to write and share my Heartbeat newsletter where I shared who and when to watch Canadian athletes compete because CBC had really improved their Olympic sports year-round coverage. I used to search each sport's federation to find how to watch Olympic sports year-round, but now, I just look at the CBC website. They have a great email newsletter, called The Buzzer, they send every day during the Olympics, letting us know the previous day's results and their recommendations of what to watch on the current day.
The Canadian Olympic Committee has a great schedule that I have been using to create my own schedule of what I care about the most.
Here is an example of how I'm writing my schedule summary. This is for two events that were held on Thursday February 12th.
🥇🇨🇦2:15pm/3pm/3:31pm Short Track Women’s 500m QF/Semi/Final
🥇🇨🇦2:28/3:07/3:43pm Short Track Men’s 1000m QF/Semi/Final
